I just finished a small but interesting book and some
of our classmates might like to know about it. "Island of Shame" by David
Vine

This is a recent writing by the young US scholar, David
Vine, who began this work in 2001 . His research is extensive and thorough
and he has a remarkable compassion for a small population cruelly
mistreated and abused by big powers.

The subject is the island of Diego Garcia, located
about 1600 km south and a bit west of India, coordinates 7º18'S, 72º24'E.
It is part of the Chagos archipelago. Diego is approximately U-shaped
with the opening to the north. It has the appearance of a folded
shoelace-a few km wide with a large lagoon in the center , about 8 by 19
km. This provides excellent protection for a large number of vessels and
has adequate depth for the largest ship, especially after dredging out the
coral heads.

This land was first occupied by French settlers who
established a coconut industry with slave labour from Africa and then
imported Indian labour after the abolition of slavery in 1835. The
Islands reverted to England after the Napoleonic wars. Creole was the main
language and over half a dozen generations the people developed a
self-sustaining society based on copra and with self-sufficiency in food
from the ocean and their own garden plots. Schools and basic medical
services were created. As part of the British Colony of Mauritius, more
complex treatments and commercial activity necessitated a four day voyage
by boat to the larger island.

In the fifties the US Navy and a civilian employee,
Stuart Barber, recognized the end of colonization and a consequent lack of
Western influence over wide areas of the world, especially the Pacific and
Indian Oceans. Barber astutely concluded that mainland military bases
would be subject to popular opposition and proposed the "Strategic Island
Concept" on which there would not be any remaining people to
cause disruptions as was already being seen in Okinawa, for example. This
would allow the US to protect its "future freedom of military action."

Vine devotes some space to the idea of US Empire. He
has world maps showing the vast number of bases now possessed by the
military, perhaps as many as 1000. Some of these were obtained as long
term leases from Britain is exchange for Lend-Lease. Others were gained
by military conquest and others by post-war agreements with defeated
powers. The numerous Pacific Islands were kept as war booty. About a
million US troops are stationed beyond US borders.

After Suez, Barber's concept gained wide acceptance in
the Navy. After inspecting Diego Garcia he realized it was an ideal base
with a dominating location and only a few inhabitants to be removed. In
1960 discussions started with the British to obtain a long term lease and
to permit early construction of facilities. The Navy suggested that Diego
be detached from the Mauritius Group before the granting self-government
to Mauritius. In 1963 Britain agreed to the suggestion, in principle. In
1965 Britain offered the potential Prime Minister the choice of
£3 million and the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago or no
independence; he selected independence.

The British Indian Ocean Territory was thus formed by
order-in-council and was not disclosed to the British nation. This
violated a UN resolution about maintaining the integrity of
non-self-governing territories but the UN also discovered this after the
fact and took no action. BIOT became the new colony comprising the Chagos
and a few islands in the Seychelles.

The US insisted on complete political and military
control and would not tolerate any residual inhabitants so the British
tried to develop a process which would allow evacuation without violating
one of the basic principles of the UN charter which stated "the interests
of the inhabitants of the territory are paramount." Thy did this by
creating the fiction that the islands had no permanent inhabitants and the
residents should be treated as a "floating population."

After the 1966 agreements Chagossians travelling to
Mauritius were not allowed to purchase a return ticket and were stranded.
A policy of limiting food supplies caused others to abandon the islands
but it was not until 1971 that the Navy received funds to proceed with
construction. At that point the inhabitants were gathered and told that
BIOT was closing Diego Garcia and the plantations.

So early in 1971 the removal was initiated in old and
badly overloaded steamers. The residents were allowed only a few
belongings and were deposited in Mauritius without funds, compensation of
any sort or employment. The last boatload left In October, 1971 with 146
people packed onto a deck with space for 60. In total between 1500 and
2000 Chagossians were displaced.

The hardships in this strange and poor overcrowded
island had the usual effects of high mortality, abuse by the host people,
disease, early deaths, lack of schooling and medical care. No housing was
allocated and people lived in terrible conditions

The US embassy in Mauritius recognized the lack of a
resettlement plan and its hugely severe consequences for the refugees. A
deputy named Henry Precht tried to get the State Department to recognize
US responsibility for these people since they ordered their removal from
their established homeland. The argument was fruitless as no one was going
to act on the pleas of such a low ranking official and the Navy brass
wanted no part of it.The official response was that this was a British
problem and the US had provided $14 million to look after it.

One of the continuing fictions regarding the islanders
was that they were "migrant copra labourers." No one showed any curiosity
as to how they could be migrants when the nearest mainland was 1500 km
distant

The author spent significant time with these evacuees
and devotes several chapters to the stories of individual families whom he
befriended and who trusted him. He describes the formation of several
protest and self-help groups in the late 70's and early 80's. In 1997 a
Mauritian attorney agreed to bring a lawsuit against the British
government. In November 2000 the British High Court found that
the expulsion was illegal under British law. This caused the laws to be
changed to allow the return to all islands except Diego Garcia which Robin
Cook said was "never achievable politically with the Americans."A class
action suit against the US failed in 2004. That year, in response to
American pressure, the British government passed orders-in-council banning
return to any of the Chagos Islands. This was contested in the High Court
again and it declared the expulsion illegal and overturned the Orders.
The judges wrote "The suggestion that a minister can, through means of an
Order in Council, exile a whole population from a British Overseas
Territory and claim that he is doing so for the 'peace, order and good
government' of the territory is, to us, repugnant." The government
appealed this decision and Court of Appeal who upheld it and called the
Orders "nothing less than an abuse of power." Again, the government
appealed this ruling to the House of Lords to have been heard in 2008. The
judgement was not available at the time of writing.

Vine concludes that the expulsion was an act of racism.
"Because they were considered black, planners could easily regard them as
insignificant, as a 'nitty gritty' detail." He points out that these
people had been previously displaced from their birthplace as an enslaved
people by the British and French empires. Displacement goes on to this day
and he sights an example in South Korea where Camp Humphreys required
several thousand acres of farmland which the farmers were forced to
surrender.

Diego Garcia and Guam allow the US to control a very
wide swath of the world. Diego was used to launch the bombing of Iraq
both times as well as Afghanistan. The Persian Gulf and the mid-east oil
resources are today more directly controlled; a plan now is shaping up
to build a base on the island of Sao Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea on the
west coast of Africa. Guinea supplies 15% of US oil imports. This area
will become as important as the middle east for US oil supplies. Sao Tomé
is described as another Diego Garcia.

Stuart Barber died in the early nineties but David Vine
managed to track down his son who revealed that his father wanted Diego to
be returned to the Chagossians since it no longer served a useful purpose
as the Cold War was over. He also said the expulsion was not needed
militarily and,indeed, private yachts are now numerous in the Diego lagoon
and foreign workers are everywhere.

Britain was forced to abandon all its activities east
of Suez in 1971 for economic reasons. Is it also a sign that the US Empire
will have to shrink rapidly to avoid an economic catastrophe? Can $1.5
trillion deficits be sustained when the debt ceiling is approaching $20
trillion and are there any leaders present to raise the alarm about the
impending disaster?